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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 55

Chapter 55 · Taste

On taste.²⁰³⁴

1 · Taste and liquids

Didymus.

Aristotle. We taste through the intervening medium of the liquids that can be tasted.²⁰³⁵

2.1 · The tongue’s distinctive experiences

Plato, from the Timaeus.

“First, then, we must explain, if possible, what we left aside in our earlier discussion of flavors: the experiences peculiar to the tongue. These too, like most other things, appear to arise through certain contractions and expansions, and, in addition, to involve roughness and smoothness rather more than the others do.”²⁰³⁶

2.2 · Astringent and austere tastes

“For earthy particles entering around the little vessels, which are like testing instruments of the tongue stretched toward the heart, fall upon the moist, soft parts of the flesh and dissolve, drawing the little vessels together and drying them. When rougher, they seem astringent; when they roughen less, austere.”²⁰³⁷

2.3 · Bitter cleansing

“Those that cleanse these parts and wash away everything around the tongue, when they do so beyond measure and attack further, so as to dissolve the tongue’s own substance, as does the power of natron, have all accordingly been called bitter.”²⁰³⁸

2.4 · Milder cleansing and saltiness

“Those less powerful than the natron-like condition, using their cleansing action in moderation, appear salty without harsh bitterness, and more agreeable to us.”²⁰³⁹

2.5 · Pungency and heat

“Those that share in the mouth’s heat and are intensely kindled along with it, then in turn burn what warmed them, and are carried upward by their lightness toward the senses of the head, cutting everything they encounter: all such things were called pungent because of these powers.”²⁰⁴⁰

2.6 · Decay, circulation, and enclosure

“Some of these same substances, refined beforehand by decay, enter the narrow passages and are proportioned to the earthy particles there and to whatever air is present. They set these in motion, making them circulate around one another; as they circulate, they collide, and, entering into one another, form hollows by enclosing what enters.”²⁰⁴¹

2.7 · The formation of bubbles

“When moisture, sometimes earthy and sometimes pure, is stretched in a hollow shell around air, these become moist containers of air, hollow and rounded bodies of water. Those formed from pure moisture stand transparent around it and are given the name bubbles.”²⁰⁴²

2.8 · Fermentation and sourness

“Those formed from earthy moisture, as it is stirred and lifted up together, are called seething and fermentation; the cause of these experiences is called sour.”²⁰⁴³

2.9 · Sweetness as restoration

“An experience opposite to all those described in this connection arises from an opposite cause: whenever the constitution of what enters in liquid form is naturally suited to the tongue’s condition, it coats and smooths what has been roughened, gathers some parts and relaxes others among those unnaturally contracted or dispersed, and establishes everything as nearly as possible in its natural state. Every such remedy for violent affections, becoming pleasant and welcome in every way, has been called sweet. So much for these matters.”²⁰⁴⁴

3 · Food entering and speech going out

Plato, from the Timaeus.

“Those who ordered us equipped the functioning of our mouth with teeth, tongue, and lips for the sake of what is necessary and what is best, arranging it as it is now: they devised its entrance for necessary things, its exit for the best. For everything that enters and gives nourishment to the body is necessary, while the stream of words flowing outward and serving understanding is the finest and best of all streams.”²⁰⁴⁵

2034.The editor restores the heading from Photius p. 112b33 and the Laurentian table of contents; it is absent from FP. The principal excerpt explains tastes through bodily interaction, including contraction, cleansing, heat, and fermentation. The concluding passage connects the mouth’s role in nutrition with its role in speech.

2035.The Latin attribution names Didymus, Epitome of Physics, fragment 17, Diels p. 456, without angle brackets in this instance; the Greek heading names Aristotle. The compressed wording includes the plural genitive tōn geustōn hygrōn, the liquids that can be tasted. The relation of these liquids to the intervening medium is left close to the printed wording; saliva or a missing singular noun is not supplied.

2036.The edition identifies Timaeus 65c-66d. Chymoi are flavors or taste-bearing juices. Synkrisis and diakrisis here describe contraction and expansion, as the following account of the tongue’s small vessels makes clear. The printed ei dynaton, if possible, is retained, rather than the ēi dynaton recorded for Plato in the apparatus.

2037.The passage itself describes the tongue’s small vessels as testing instruments directed toward the heart. Earthy particles are the subject of the actions. Styphna and austēra name stronger and weaker degrees of the drying, contracting effect, rendered astringent and austere; the latter word describes a taste, not a moral disposition.

2038.Rhyptika means cleansing or scouring. The explanation links bitterness with a cleansing action strong enough to affect the tongue’s own tissue. Nitra is rendered natron, an alkaline cleansing substance, without identifying it with a single pure modern compound. The example belongs to the ancient classification.

2039.The comparative contrast is between excessive and moderate cleansing. Halyka means salty. The English follows the printed nitrōdous, natron-like; the difference between this word and the spelling reported for Plato is orthographic, not an additional ingredient.

2040.The printed kai lian men, and intensely, is retained; the apparatus records the different phrase kai leiainomena, and being smoothed, in Plato. The Greek’s unbalanced construction is smoothed in English without importing that reading. Drimea is pungent or acrid: the description combines reciprocal heating, upward movement, and cutting.

2041.The Greek shifts from genitive participles to other constructions; the English gives a provisional continuous account while retaining the actions in order. It takes the stated proportion as relating the entering substances to the earthy and airy contents of the passages. Perigignomena is read as enclosing, in preparation for the following account of moist walls around air. No missing Greek is supplied.

2042.The syntax continues the preceding difficult sentence. The English understands hydata koila peripherē as hollow, rounded bodies of water: the moisture surrounds the enclosed air. Pompholyges are bubbles. The distinction between pure and earthy moisture leads to the next contrast.

2043.Zesis is seething or effervescence, zymōsis fermentation. The English takes anairoumenēs as being lifted up and retains the printed form; the apparatus reports airomenēs in Plato. Oxys here means sour, whereas the same adjective describes high pitch in I.53.5.3. The physical process and the resulting taste term remain distinct.

2044.The restoration of a natural condition explains sweetness. The printed wording first names contracted and dispersed parts, then gathering and relaxing; the English retains both pairs without forcing a one-to-one correspondence in the same order. The intended restorative contrast is clearer than the precise distribution of its demonstratives. The passage’s final sentence is included.

2045.The edition identifies Timaeus 75d-e. The unnamed orderers remain unnamed in the excerpt. The physical entrance of food is paired with the outward stream of speech serving phronēsis, understanding or intelligence. The translation preserves the repeated stream image. This completes chapter 55.